Currently, there are three kinds of ultrasound interventional ablation methods used for the treatment of a cancer: radiofrequency ablation (RFA), cryoablation, and microwave ablation. In these three methods, a special needle or ablation probe is placed to a location of a tumor (inserted into the tumor) through the skin or body lumen structure of a human By local heating (for the radiofrequency ablation and the microwave ablation) or freezing (for the cryoablation), the tumor cells can be killed. Ultrasound imaging is applied throughout the procedure of the interventional ablation. With the ultrasound waves, a great deal of image information can be obtained relating to the disease organization during the diagnosis, preoperative, and postoperative stages. In this way, important complementary physiological and anatomical information can be provided for the research, treatment, and diagnosis of disease.
Take tumor treatment as an example. Generally a tumor is approximately spherical, while the ablated area obtained by the radiofrequency ablation or the microwave ablation is ellipsoidal. Therefore, it often occurs clinically that the ablated area completely covers the tumor boundary in the direction of the ablation needle (the long axis direction of the ellipsoidal ablated area) while does not completely cover the tumor boundary in the direction perpendicular to the direction of the ablation needle. In order to address this issue, ultrasound contrast imaging is used to evaluate the results of the interventional treatment.
Currently, the main evaluation method is performing ultrasound two-dimensional contrast imaging before and after the ablation to measure the long diameter of the tumor and the long diameter of the ablated area. However, the consistency between the ultrasound sections and locations in the two measurements cannot be guaranteed. Particularly, when the ablation is performed for multiple times to treat a large tumor, the simple measurement of the long diameter of the ablated area cannot represent the entire ablated area. The current three-dimensional ultrasound contrast imaging is mainly used to separate states of a target area. Alternatively, 4D imaging is used to display the dynamic blood perfusion in a target area. However, neither method can provide a quantitative data reference for ablation effects.
Therefore, there is a need to provide a new ultrasonic image processing system to provide more efficient quantitative data reference for cancer treatment or other medical processes.